The Chronic Diaries: Life Filtered Through Leukemia

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11/21/14 I Know That This Is the CLL Blog

I have CLL. I write about CLL. But I have been given an opportunity to write about other things because my CLL is not on high on the front burner. I am no longer in MRD status, and back on watch and wait, all while seeing the encroaching signs of accelerating status. I will return to Hemosapien in December for another round of blood work. Hopefully a CBC will not reveal anything surprising, but with CLL, you never know.

When the CLL returns with gusto, I will return to writing about it with gusto, since it is likely that few things will be as prominent in my mind. But at this moment, and for the last six years, I have been given a reprieve. I have not wasted it, discovering in the course of the last six years other talents and passions that were previously unknown to me. This blog is evidence of that.

I have the best of care under the watchful eyes of Hemosapien and Gooday. At one time I was on the cutting edge of layman’s knowledge about my disease, but things change rapidly. I just last week learned of new prognosticators that separate out subgroups of previous prognosticators. As for that knowledge among us CLL patients? We are preoccupied with prognosticators. I was before, and I still am now. You say you’re not? Ahhh! You’ll do better to spend your time trying to persuade someone else of that. I know better.

The best benefit of prognosticators is their use by our health care professionals in how they might best go about treating us. We patients look at them and from them try to make predictions about how long we might live with our disease, perhaps mistaking the prognosticators for the only call the grim reaper is permitted to make. What a mistake! The grim reaper is not limited by our prognosticators. We are foolish to think so.

We do not know what lurks around the corner, nor is it wise to spend too much time thinking about it as it can produce a paralysis of fear. The thing we fear most could overtake us, but in a way we had not contemplated, nor that is considered by our prognosticators.

So, as Thanksgiving approaches, I will be thankful for what I have at this moment. I will not mourn for what I have lost that I cannot get back. I will be thankful that I am here, among the peace and plenty I have at hand, and the people I love the most.

Fear will not stifle this. Not today.

As for tomorrow?

A great man once said, “Take no thought of tomorrow; Sufficient for the day are the evils thereof.”

Today, tomorrow will have to worry about itself. Tomorrow, I may have a different attitude.

Today is all I can control.

NOTE: If you’d like to read about my journey from the beginning, please refer to the tab above THE CHRONIC DIARIES. They are downloadable PDF files that document from my diagnosis, through chemo, through nights of despair, and days of sheer joy. They also document my efforts and the assistance of others in trying to control my costs in the face of a dramatically changing health insurance environment. Best Regards!!!